


From This Day Forward

by Teridactyl



Series: Wasteland Management [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Comic, Embedded Images, F/M, Fan Comics, Flashbacks, Operation: Anchorage (Fallout), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teridactyl/pseuds/Teridactyl
Summary: Nathan Rook has some bad news: he's off to war, and he's not sure how his new girlfriend will take it. Will they work something out, or is it over before it even started?Inserts after Chapter 30 from my story/journal/scrapbook projectSole Surviving, but also manages as a standalone story on its own.** IMAGE INTENSIVE **This is a full-sized, 22-page comic book. Each page is a "chapter" to make it easier to download. Images are large so they may take a bit longer to load depending on your connection.
Relationships: Nora/Male Sole Survivor
Series: Wasteland Management [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1094787
Comments: 19
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

**Welcome to the Wasteland's newest issue of "Live and Love," featuring an _actual_ illustration by Yours Truly. **It's nice to show my lousy art degree wasn't a complete waste of money. By the way, did you notice the halftones up there? I'm really pleased with those halftones.[1]

This whole comic took me roughly three months to do. Part of that was committing to actually making it a comic. I started writing it out in narrative "journal" format as a chapter in ["Soul Surviving,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18987979/chapters/45087478) then I realized this is a conversation I've had in my head for a long, long time between Nathan and Nora. Probably one of the first that really started to give "Nathan" shape in my head as his own character, not just Bethesda's Fallout 4's Sole SurvivorTM. I wrote this conversation out in multiple formats——first person, third, letter, even started an alternate version as Nora——and none of them did it any justice. I realized I wasn't going to be happy with the end result until I made it a full-blown comic. Three months and a crap ton of hours later: taa daa.

This "issue," if you're willing to keep pretending with me on the longer narrative, is an homage/parody of of those old [ romance comics of yesteryear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_comics). If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, I urge you to Google a few. They're a bit of a curiosity now and an interesting slice-of-life look at pre-feminist media. In short, romance comics were produced by men, the very same authors and artists who also made superhero comics (i.e., Kirby, Lee, etc.). The difference was these were primarily aimed toward women. They featured teary-eyed, stuttering, insecure women.[2] These comics represented only a tiny bit of the social mores that contributed to the media's idea of how women should behave, dress, look and act to attract hypermasculine, really tall, and REALLY OLD men. God forbid any woman should ever become an "old maid"! It was literally the worst thing that could ever happen to you.

In short, they were overdramatic, stereotyped, and incredibly sexist, but then again, so was everything. Independent, career-minded, confident, sexually-liberated women were shunned in these storylines, if not outright vilified. In short, our heroine Nora would be an _undesirable old tramp_ if my comic were "period accurate."

So yes, ladies, we have a way to go, but never forget how far we've come. Here's some inspiration for you (note the date in the upper left...Sept 1973. Not as long ago as you're probably comfortable with):[3]

**Golly, yes! She must be all of 22! She'll die alone now, for sure!  
Never mind that he's, like, 45...**

Now, I'm not out to turn the whole genre on its ear, but I did want to play with the gender dynamics, at least a teeny bit. In the short interaction we see the two of them have, I never felt that "Nate" was super masculine, nor did I think Nora was overtly feminine. They laugh and poke fun at one another, and they cleary had an equal partnership. If you walk around the house in the beginning as the male protagonist and click on absolutely everything, you'll find that "Nate" is very proud of his wife's law degree. And Nora's "I Love You, Honey" holotape gift to him is equally sweet and flattering. Despite that, I couldn't help wonder how a soldier and a lawyer hooked up to begin with.

This isn't that story. But, hopefully it's the next best thing. 

Happy Valentine's Day! Looking forward to sharing. Hope you enjoy...

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Technically they're more like [Ben-Day Dots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Day_process), but whatever.[return to top]
> 
> 2 A la [Roy Lichtenstein's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein) pop-art paintings such as ["Drowning Girl"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning_Girl).[return to top]
> 
> 3 Or perhaps it's just me, since it's a year after I was born.[return to top]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay, I promise no more animated gifs in this comic. I wasn't going to include it this one, except that glitch came out looking so cool, I couldn't help myself. But the gif compression leaves the colors looking flat. What do you expect for a 30-year old image format invented by CompuServ.
> 
> And yes, the first few pages are meant to be a little disorienting. Just stick with it. It'll make more sense in couple more pages.


	3. Chapter 3




	4. Chapter 4




	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I'd be able to objectively _watch_ one of my own memories from a third person point-of-view without being hyper-critical of myself, even if it was a happy one. Memories are tricky, anyway. They're liquid, changing shape over time, sometimes fairly drastically. This is why I'm fond of saying that _history_ and _fact_ are not mutually exclusive. 
> 
> It makes me wonder how the Memory Loungers work. Even if the data is exact, there's no way it's accurate. It's too subjective. And if it's a distant memory, parts of it surely won't even exist. At best, they're no more accurate than a polygraph and not admissible as evidence, so they have that going for them. I guess the question is why would anyone even bother?
> 
> Anyway, this is my way of saying Nathan is basically heckling himself as a younger man because you know you would too!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I talk to my companions in the game a lot. _A LOT,_ a lot. Borderline obsessively, and certainly way more than is necessary. I like their voices, what can I say? But when the player character asks, "How are we doing?" it always sounds like he's asking for a performance appraisal or he's incredibly insecure. I figure it had to start somewhere...
> 
> Also, Nora looks so adorable on this page, I just want to _squish_ her. I'd be a little wobbly, too, if someone looked at me like that!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is where I totally began to regret not making them both bald.
> 
> The hair looks fine in-game as long as they're moving around. Once you take a still shot, though, that all changes. So I spent a lot of time teaching myself how to make their hair not look like ferns sprouting out of their skulls. 
> 
> So if you didn't notice the hair before, look at it now. LOOK AT IT.


	8. Chapter 8




	9. Chapter 9




	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picture is entirely gratuitous. 
> 
> You don't get to touch your companions in the game because they have this force-field bubble around them that, when you get too close, they bounce back out of the way, like magnets repelling one another. This avoids clipping and awkwardness with the first-person camera, of course. But there where were _so_ many times I wanted to reach through the monitor and just sweep the player character in a huge hug. Or at the very least, command someone else to do it. But as much as I wanted to, there's no "Press [ X ] to give hug" mechanic in the game.
> 
> This took ages to get their poses to line up and look natural so that Nora's face wasn't engulfed in Nathan's shoulder, or his arms weren't clipping through her midsection, especially since I made Nathan about 3% taller than default, and Nora about 2% shorter than default (because hey, I'm not so feminist that I don't still love tall men). But when I finally inched them both into place in my little ad-hoc park under the lantern lights and the trees in the back, I couldn't help shed a tear or five.
> 
> So here. Here's both of them together. My poor, broken heart can rest now.


	11. Chapter 11




	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _want_ that patch. FYI, patches like that that don't designate official stuff like rank or title are called "morale patches." I didn't know that before I started researching and designing this one.
> 
> I'm making fun of my own job, here. My day job, that is——the one that pays me. I started out as the Sole Surviving technical writer doing documentation for a 500+ person call center, but recently, I got moved to the Communication team in my department because they didn't know where else to put me. In the civilian workforce, "Communications" is a bullshit title that just means, "We don't know what else to call you." I assume it's probably the same in the military. It's a comfortable, uncontroversial word to get your mouth around, but doesn't really describe anything. As my list of tasks grew higher and more varied, it became clear it was a catch-all for whatever nobody else wants to do. 
> 
> I joked at one point that any schmuck with a smartphone could be a "communication expert". 
> 
> I write about 70% of the drafts for the fics and comics here on my iPhone during breaks and downtime and sometimes when my brain just needs to escape. At roughly 30K+ words, I'm _quite_ the Mobile Intelligent Communication Expert by now, thankyouverymuch. 
> 
> Seriously thinking about tweaking the design a bit and getting an order of these patches made. I need to order at least 50 to keep the cost down to about $6 a patch. I have no desire in peddling my own _merch_ , so I'd sell them at cost + shipping if I can get enough interest (*hint hint*). I've got about 20 people interested right now, so I might just do it anyway. I could use some morale.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene recreated from [Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/fallout-operation-anchorage-scre.jpg). 
> 
> That’s supposed to be Sgt. Benjamin Montgomery standing next to Nathan up there, too. I had to use a lot of artistic license on both he and General Chase. I'd forgotten how much Fallout 3 faces had a _lot_ to be desired.
> 
> It took me a bit of MacGuyvering to get Fallout 3 to function on my Windows 10 machine to play the Operation: Anchorage DLC, but I’m so glad I did. It was worth it to be able to explore the most significant campaign in Fallout lore, even if——according to the terminals you read——almost _none_ of it happened that way. That just adds another layer of awesome to it. _Highly_ recommended.


	14. Chapter 14




	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, _I'm totally_ not at all _implying that the Lone Wanderer was the avatar of the male Sole Survivor and commanding officer that became the subject of Chase's simulation during Operation: Anchorage_. Why on earth would you even think that?
> 
> If you explored the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3 enough, you might have [run across the pose at the top](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/Anchorage_Memorial_Statue.jpg). It was also pointed out to me that these are three classic poses you see with those little plastic Army men, which I find just darling. I hack on Fallout 3 quite a bit, mostly because I just couldn't emotionally invest in the characters through the game's clunky dialogue mechanics, but it did have some brilliant visual moments.
> 
> For my Fallout 4 in-game "Anchorage cosplay," I dressed up all my (human) companions in classic armor, installed a snow mod, and dragged them around the Commonwealth with me. My original idea was to use only Fallout 4 by rebuilding all the sets from Operation: Anchorage, or scoping out locations that could "pass" for caves and bunkers (such as Dunwich Borers) by using tight shots, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted. I stopped when I considered actually trying to build that listening post. I'd still be working on this if I decided to do that. Still, it was a blast, and I took way more shots of the companions than I used here. So here's a "deleted scenes" reel:
> 
> [Anchorage 1](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/377160_20191030170837_1.png)   
>  [Anchorage 2](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/anchorage02.png)   
>  [Anchorage 3](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/anchorage03.png)   
>  [Anchorage 4](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/377160_20191030180041_1.png)   
>  [Anchorage 5](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/377160_20191030190922_1.png)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You go, Nora. Don’t fall for his male chauvinistic stereotypes. What is this, a cheesy 50’s romance comic? Ha!
> 
> I learned how to input specific facial morphs in Fallout 4 right before I started this project. The biggest thing it did was make it able to keep their mouths open when you pause the screen so it doesn’t look like everyone is telepathically projecting their thoughts to one another. I don't keep their mouths open in every panel--just like an actual comic book wouldn't--but a little goes a long way, and as with any facial expressions, subtlety is best. 
> 
> I plotted a bunch of batch files I can do quickly for some common expressions I use like smile, smirk, scowl, shout, ohshit, and BSOD.. Nathan’s WTF lemon-face in the center there was one of the first more exaggerated ones I tried while learning how to do it. It’s kind of a cross between ohshit and BSOD and a extreme pucker. It doesn’t exactly look natural, but it’s kind of cute and hilarious, nonetheless.
> 
> For anyone who’s curious how to make their own, [here’s a wonderful tutorial on the process](https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/39584). Like everything, it takes some practice, but It was a total game-changer for me. _Literally!_


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reuse poses in different angles a lot as a sort of cheat, because every time they move, that’s another hour I spend modeling a pose that looks like something a person would actually be able to do. I don’t use many poses from the other sets out there, because I find them too cheesecake and exploitive for females (most women’s spines can’t actually bend that way), and the very few that have gender-neutral or masculine poses are unnecessarily exaggerated or aggressive. So I do my own because I want them to look like actual people doing actual people stuff, not a Playboy pin-up or a freeze frame out of the Matrix. There are 43 unique poses I modeled and imported into the game for this comic over about 77 panels, total. That’s an average of two unique poses per page. That average is slightly skewed, however, because some pages are pretty static and use the same pose over and I over just at different angles and sometimes different facial morphs, while others have a whole new pose per panel.
> 
> Like any art rendering of people in any medium, hands continue to be the _worst_ , because every finger joint moves, bends, and twists on all axes, and if you’re not paying attention, they can end up looking like they went through a [meat grinder](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/fingers.png) with the slightest nudge (oof...sorry Nora). Getting Nathan to hold Nora’s hand in the bottom panel took a whole weekend to get the pose, placement, and size ratio between them just right for the [two of them sitting on a bench](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/BenchCouple01.png), so don't be surprised if you see this pose again over the next couple pages. Getting them to do _anything_ where they're touching takes hours of patience, and this was definitely one of the more complex ones I did. _Gods, but they look sooooo cuuuuute!!!_


	18. Chapter 18




	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooo, I know what’s coming! I can’t wait!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait, so I posted them both today~


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you're doing a big project like this, it's easy to forget you're still playing the game, especially if I'm quickly flipping between the game, 3DS Max, the game files, and sometimes Photoshop if I'm trying to pick up a replacement shot. But the game doesn't let you forget that for long, so once in a while I'll still get a notification that my settlement is under attack and I actually have to, you know, go play the game. Nathan and Nora up there aren't actual player characters or NPCs, though. They're animated mannequins that have their AI turned off, thus making them far easier to pose and move around and work with in general, so I can usually just leave them in place. But I can't turn off the AI globally while I'm doing this, because the poses won't refresh when I overwrite the new ones. So, technically nothing is stopping a Super Mutant attack from barging into my carefully hand-placed scene and wrecking everything, or the yao guai that's sniffing around nearby from getting a little too curious and attacking MY player character who's doing the camera work and set building...and who is also Nathan, albeit a post-game and slightly more battle-worn and road-weary version. So in a sense, he's kind of "directing" his own flashback scene... Honestly, it's best not to think about it too much. 
> 
> Anyway, because the game could up and decide to try and slaughter me during this, I keep my other companions nearby to fight them off should something happen. My main game that I completed ages ago and use for testing and building and scene setting is at Level 153, so I'm not worried about dying, I just don't want to be bothered. But once in a while, I forget to tell them to stay outta my way. Of course, this inevitably leads to some [deliciously awkward moments](http://teristearns.com/wp-content/uploads/fo4_live_and_love/extras/oops.png).
> 
> "Cut! Goddamnit, can we get the extra out of the scene, please? But make sure he signs the release form. We might use him somewhere else."
> 
> All right folks, finish line is in sight! One more page left!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of feels went into the making of this. I lost two people very near and dear to me within a relatively short time span, one of whom passed while this was in progress. Part of the reason I wanted to write this comic is that I've noticed how weird how other people act when they know you've lost someone you were close to. Mentioning them again in any context, other than how much you miss them now they're dead--that's expected, of course--brings about two reactions: sad, puppy dog eyes, or visible squeamishness. I know grieving the death of a loved one is nobody's idea of a good time, but that doesn't mean I can't grieve _all_ of that person, the good, bad, funny, awkward, even the annoying times--the whole gamut. Hey, I earned the right to love/rant/laugh at this person a _long damn time ago_. Why should I have to stop now? I know we should honor the dead, but to me that means remembering the _whole_ person, the pain-in-the-ass times that drove you bonkers, as well as the times that made you stick by them through all of that. 
> 
> I really wanted to show that in this comic. There are moments when Nathan is clearly gobsmacked by something Nora says, and there are times when she starts ramping up for an argument that's not even relevant and he has to steer her back on his trajectory. Pages 7 and 8 are obviously not the first time they've had that conversation, and probably far from the last. The key to any good relationship, I've learned, is to allow yourselves to disagree without dehumanizing the other person. And sometimes it's okay to back down and just listen.
> 
> I loved making this comic. I have a few more in the works, but they do take a significant amount of time and effort to produce. A comic like this on the stands would cost anywhere from $6 - $10. If you liked it and it touched you too, that makes me happy. But if you liked it a _whole lot_ \--enough to consider throwing a couple bucks toward it, maybe--then please consider donating to charity or an organization that supports underrepresented people and citizens, such as **ACLU** , **Doctors Without Borders** , or **National Veterans Foundation**. Or if you want to support transformative works like this, donate to [Archive of Our Own (Organization for Transformative Works)](https://otw.cividesk.com/civicrm/index.php?q=civicrm/contribute/transact&reset=1&id=17). You don't have to tell me, and you don't have to do it in my name. I'm just glad it moved you to do something. And if you can't, that's okay, too. Just keep it in mind when you can.
> 
> Most of all, thank you for reading, your kudos, your bookmarks, and your comments. It's always lovely to hear how much others enjoyed my work.
> 
> [We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18987979/chapters/53367616)


End file.
